Finally Arriving
by LiesRungTrue
Summary: It's Jane's first year at Hogwarts and already she's in the midst of an invasion. How will she cope with a dodgy back and a stutter against these perfect girls and their Imperiuslike weapons? Will she be able to help Harry and Co. in their fight or is she
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: All J. K. Rowling's except for the bits that aren't.

I'd been on the train for a while, having arrived stupidly early (at least in my opinion) 'cause Mum had to rush off to work after dropping me off. Didn't particularly bother me though; it would give me an opportunity to catch up on the sleep I'd missed the previous night due to nerves. Of course actually getting some sleep was easier said than done.

"Oh bloody hell, it's another one." A voice pierced through my slumber; maybe they'd go away in a minute.

"Really? Are you sure?"

"Well, she's a bit big for a first year isn't she?"

"Yeah, but she doesn't really look much like the others though."

All right, so apparently they were intent on staying. Not only that, from what I had heard, they seemed to be talking about me too. Perhaps a gentle hint would get them to leave.

"Christ. Could you two shut up and let me get some bloody sleep?"

"Doesn't exactly sound like one either."

"I don't know; remember that blue haired one who got into Slytherin last year? She sounded a bit like that."

"Oh yeah."

So, I was doomed to be kept awake - my sleep would have to wait until tonight. I gave up, sitting up I opened my eyes and took a bleary look at my two pests. A pair of girls stood in the doorway to the compartment, both with looks of deep suspicion on their face.

"Happy now? I'm up."

The pair sat down opposite me, and now that my vision had cleared I managed to get a better look at them. The first was a petite Asian girl and the second, a female who was quite possibly the embodiment of the phrase 'English Rose'.

The latter of the two now spoke to me. "Good. Maybe now you can answer a few questions for us."

What? Hadn't I already done this when I applied to the school? Oh well, might as well humour them, after all I might end up having to spend the rest of my school life with them; they did look around my age.

I shrugged. "Sure, axe away."

Rose, as I'd dubbed her (at least 'til I learned her name), nodded. "Right. First, what's your name?"

Well, that was easy, I wonder what was with the third degree?

"Jane D-d-dunkley. Why, what's yours?"

"You mean you don't know?" The Asian girl (henceforth known as Butterfly, after the lovely clip in her hair) gave me an odd look, heavens know why.

"No. Why should I? I mean I've only just met ya." _What am I, a mind reader?_ That thought went unsaid. 

"Well, there's a good sign." Butterfly muttered to Rose before the latter turned to face me again.

"So Jane, where are you from?" she asked, completely ignoring my questions.

"Brum," I said simply before extrapolating a little further, "Well, actually Dudley, it's a town near it. Dunno whether you've heard of it? Look, could ya tell me what all this is about?"

Butterfly nodded, she'd heard of it apparently but other than that my own questions went unanswered once again. "Thought I recognised the accent. Now. Parents, siblings; do you have any?"

I sighed, maybe all would become clear later. "Daft question, of course I do. Me mum and a bratty little sis' who'll probably be joining me next year; dad sodded off a couple of years ago, leaving us three on our own with a lovely set of Goblin debts. Sufficed to say I don't want to see him any time soon."

That seemed to satisfy them somewhat and the tension in the air cleared a little.

Once again Butterfly spoke, "Okay, last questions. Where are you transferring from and why?"

I almost laughed; I'd been expecting those questions for a while now. In fact, I'd been surprised that they hadn't asked them sooner. Smiling a bit I told them, awaiting their reaction.

"St Mungo's, actually."

This time I did chuckle, the looks on their faces was hilarious.

"Oh, don't worry! I ain't nuts or nothing."

"Then why, might I ask, were you in there?"

"Got hit by a van couple of years ago, just after I got me letter. Smashed me up real good, it did; spine, legs, head, the lot. It took 'em till Feb to fix me back up; mind you I've got some lovely scars to show for it still. Wanna see?"

The pair blanched at the thought. I didn't blame them though; I'd done the exact same thing when I'd first seen them. Mind you, they'd faded a bit since then. Still got that bloody stutter though, can't see why they couldn't have fixed that while I was in there.

"Just kidding. Any road, I was supposed to come here just after the accident but seein' how I was back then, it sorta put a damper on things. So I was kept on the list here and went to the school at the hospital until I was better. 'Til I could walk and talk proper and the like."

That got Rose to raise an eyebrow, who knows why, but it did seem to placate them as they came over and sat either side of me. Butterfly took my hand and shook it.

"Sorry about the interrogation, Jane, but we have to be careful; you'll find out why soon enough, I wager. Anyway, I'm Parvati Patil and this is my friend, Lavender Brown."

"Nice to meet you." Lavender nodded in greeting.

"Likewise, Lavender." Huh, so I wasn't that far off with my dubbing, at least on her account. "So. What was with the third degree earlier on?"

"Well, we've been having a little trouble at school lately you see…" Parvati's face clouded.

Odd, Dumbledore hadn't mentioned any sort of trouble to me, mind you I hadn't  
asked. "Oh? What kind of trouble? Is it like that stuff I saw in the papers last year?"

Lavender smiled at that, "No, not exactly. This is more of a different problem… one that the newspapers don't really know about as of yet."

Okay, so now my curiosity was peaked. "Go on, ya know I'll find out sooner or later. Might as well tell me now."

"Well…" Parvati and Lavender shared a wary look; reminding me of those they'd given me when I'd first met them. It only took them a few moments to reach a decision, "Okay. Hogwarts is…" Before she could finish though, she was interrupted by an insanely cheerful voice.

"Hi there!"

A… well I suppose it was a girl, something about her seemed a little off though, stood in the doorway of the compartment. Boy was she an odd one to look at; black hair that had both a blue and a red sheen, still don't know how she quite managed that one but it gave me migraines just thinking about it. Violet eyes, no not a bluish purple, proper violet eyes. Alabaster skin that was as white as snow, curves in all the right places, she was a wonder to look at. The beauty spoke again, her voice ringing in my ears like wind chimes.

"I'm Krystabella Zircon, have you seen my Harri-kins at all?"

Hold on… _Krystabella_ Zircon? God, what were her parents on when they named her that? I couldn't stop myself sniggering at it.

The noise seemed to disorient Krystabella for a moment and I felt something change; my head cleared as if I'd been half-asleep before and only just awoken.

"Is something funny?" Krystabella demanded, no, screeched; her voice was gratingly high. It was at that point that I realised exactly how stupid she looked. She reminded me too much of the strange doodles a fellow 'inmate' at St Mungos used to draw, and the memory of those compared to the girl standing in front of me broke what ever hold I had on myself. I laughed, hard and really quite loudly. I might have pointed too but I was too busy holding my sides.

She seemed to get quite upset by this though and she pulled her wand out on me.

Damn.

"Why are you laughing at me?"

A quick glance at Parvati and Lavender told me that they'd be no help. They looked entranced by the girl.

"I… erm…" Great, perfect time to become incomprehensible, Jane.

"Enough. This will teach you to laugh at Krystabella Zircon." Another snort of laughter escaped me; did she really know what she had said? Sadly this only seemed to enrage her further. I closed my eyes and started to fumble for my wand. Too late though…

"_Crucidavra!_"

Nothing happened. I risked unclenching my eyes to take a peek at the girl. She was just standing there, looking confusedly at her wand. I took that opportunity to grab my own wand and point it at her.

"_St_-_st_-_st_—" _Come on! Get it out!_ "_Stupefy!_"

Better. I took a strange satisfaction in watching her drop to the ground. Don't know why, I'm normally not that petty.

"Wha?" That wasn't Krystabella, came from opposite me for one. "Oh no, not again."

"Bloody thing, first one in a while that's got us. Have to be more careful next time."

Lavender and Parvati seemed to have stared to wake from their trance and were now looking in disgust at the prone body on the floor. I was rather surprised when Parvati's leg shot out and she kicked Krystabella hard in her unnaturally thin torso.

"That would be our problem right there," Parvati spat, "bloody Sues."

"What? How? What do you mean, Sues?" Someone _that _ridiculous and inept was a threat to Hogwarts? How?

"Her and others like her," Lavender replied; she seemed rather upset by the whole thing. "They… they aren't human. We call them Sues after the first one that appeared in the school about two years ago. You're rather lucky to have come so late, Jane; we've found ways to cope with them now. Before," she shuddered, "before we had no defence; we were enthralled constantly. Well most of us were; some seem to have a natural defence. The Hufflepuffs mainly, don't know why they have it but I envy them. Parvati and I seem to have built up some sort of defence against them too; I'm not sure why this one was able to hypnotise us, but one hasn't been able to do it in a long while."

This sounded bad; the look of horror on Lavender's face as she told me was enough to scare the hell out of me. Parvati just seemed angry, although I couldn't really tell as she was busy tying up the… Sue with one of her school ties.

"So… so why hasn't anything been d-done about it? Surely Dumbledore could stop them? I mean even you-know-who's afraid of him."

"Dumbledore's one of the worst affected by them, excepting maybe Harry Potter and Malfoy." _Oh yeah, Harry Potter's in my year. I'd forgotten about that, be interesting to see if he's like what the papers make him out to be. Doubt it really, not with the tripe the Prophet's been coming out with lately._

"I see… d'ya think I'll meet more of these… Sues? Are there really that many?" I really was worried now. If they could affect Dumbledore… well who knows what to think…

"Oh you'll meet them Jane," Parvati said darkly; she'd finished with the body and had sat back next to Lavender. "There's no escaping the Sues. They'll find you; just pray you've got enough wits to get them before they ensnare you…"

Great. Not only had I the Sorting to worry about, not to mention lessons. I now had this.

Fun…


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Some settings and characters used in this story belong to the divine J. K. Rowling. Jane and, alas, the Sues belong to me. None of this is for profit, just the sheer fun of it.

A/N: It's nice to see so many of you like this. If I need to improve it, tell me. If you love it and you think it's perfect, say so. On the other hand if you loathe it and think it a waste of space, feel free to point it out. Whichever, why not review? I'll return the favour.

* * *

_It's a sodding hat_. I nearly cursed out loud when I saw it but then I remembered where I was - standing in the middle of a group of people half my height. I was already getting enough strange looks without swearing at an inanimate object. Honestly, with all the talk of dragons and chimeras that that huge bloke had given us on our way over to the school, well I'd really started to fear for my life. In retrospect I probably should have asked either Lavender or Parvati about it, although that would have spoiled the surprise.

Things had followed on in this way ever since I'd stepped off that train, not that the boat journey across the lake wasn't beautiful but it wasn't really worth the seasickness; and I'm sure the other occupants of the boat I was in would agree. Of course they'd been too busy questioning me about my presence to notice my discomfort.

"So how come you're here with us?" Ah, here we go again. By this time I was seriously considering handing out leaflets explaining my story.

"I was ill, so I couldn't come here until now and I haven't been Sorted yet so… here I am." Or maybe some sort of label I could wear…

"Oh," I awaited the almost inevitable question of what was wrong with me to come and was rather surprised when it didn't. "What's your name then?" I turned to face my interrogator; but finding no one there I looked down, and down before I saw her. It was a bit unnerving having someone stare up at me from around navel height, especially when they're peering through a pair of overly large glasses to do so. "Well?"

"Err, Jane. What's yours?" The look she gave then was rather strange, as if she was checking to see if anyone was listening.

"Promise not to laugh?"

"Yeah."

"Really? Because if you do, I'll kick you." She sounded serious, could it really be that bad?

"I promise." I tried to sound as sincere as I could as I figured the only place she could kick me was my shin, and the nerves in them still weren't right; I'd rather that they weren't banged too much.

Her head swung down suddenly, and her words were murmured so quietly that I could barely hear them.

"Laidalien Duntz."

I bit down hard on my lip; I had to, as I really didn't want to be kicked. A boy standing behind Laidalien – honestly, what parent could be so cruel to call their child that – wasn't so lucky. His snort of laughter was cut short as her arm met his midriff.

"Ow! What was that for?" he demanded, looking around; probably to see if any teachers were watching. No such luck, they were all watching the hat, which was singing? Strange.

"If you were eavesdropping close enough to hear my name," Laidalien said tetchily, "then you would have heard my warning. It's your own fault."

The boy's retort was cut off though as Professor McGonagall called out a name, I didn't catch it but then again I wasn't really listening out for it. Seemed it belonged to the boy who had eavesdropped on us before though, as he went scuttling off up onto the stage, probably eager to get away from Laidalien, who was still glaring at him. I wondered what she'd do when her name was called out; she couldn't exactly hit everyone in the school, could she?

I didn't think I would ever be grateful to my arsehole of a father for anything, but I must admit, I was glad I wasn't lumbered with some surname way down in the alphabet like Zebedee or something else equally inane. At least this way I wouldn't be standing round for ages, waiting to be called while people stared at me. See? Onto the B's already. Bloody hell but they're loud though, granted it's nice to be welcomed into a house but do they have to be so… enthusiastic about it? I'm sure the poor kid's having a fun time as it is without you horrible lot jostling him about like that.

C's now… wait. Where did the C's go? Oh that's hardly fair, I know I said I was thankful for not having to wait long but this is ridiculous; I didn't mean now.

"Dunkley, Jane."

Bugger. And don't think I can't hear the sniggers at that green table, Slythers is it? I really have to pay more attention to these things. On the plus side though, at least the hat fits and doesn't nearly swallow my head whole like it did with the tiny first years. Hooray for being fully-grown eh?

'Indeed, Miss Dunkley. I must say it's a pleasure to finally meet you. Now, where shall we put you?'

The hat talks.

'Obviously not Ravenclaw then.'

The hat thinks it's witty.

'Perhaps Slytherin?'  
Ah so that's what it was, I knew the name was something like that.

'Or perhaps not, you can be sarcastic at times and rather biting too if the mood strikes you. But there's no ambition there, you're happy with your lot.'

Hardly. Had it seen my lot lately? Honestly, I thought it was supposed to 'see all there was to see', or so it claimed.

'Ah so you were paying attention to my little ditty.'

Unfortunately, yes, or at least that scrap of it. I really wished it would get a move on though instead of making inane little comments. People were starting to wonder why it's taking so long; it's rather embarrassing really, especially the whispering.

'All right, all right. Rather anti-social aren't we?'

I was pretty sure at that point I was about to become more so.

'Not for Hufflepuff then, I think, you lack the affability to do well there. Besides I wouldn't really want to inflict you on them.'

Scissors. Must have scissors, or maybe even bare hands would do, material this old couldn't hold together too well.

'Definitely not Hufflepuff. I suppose that as the others are ruled out, and you already have people you know there you'll just have to go to…'

Gryffindor!

I can't remember taking the hat off, but I do remember the glare that McGonagall gave me afterwards so I suppose I couldn't have been too gentle with it. Serves the evil thing right for insulting then deafening me though.

So I wandered vaguely over to the red table, Gryffindor, my table I suppose. Lavender and Parvati waved me over to sit next to them, all the while listening for Laidalien's name to be called out. I took my seat and waited for the hysterics to commence; amazingly though it never came, although I swear I saw McGonagall's lip twitch. She pronounced it wrong, or at least much differently from what Laidalien had said it to be, I guess she must have convinced herself that there was no possible way that it could be said as written.

Thankfully the rest of the hall wasn't left too long to puzzle out McGonagall's translation as Laidalien was quickly pronounced to be another ear-shattering Gryffindor! It looked like the Hat wasn't too kind with her either as she slammed the Hat back onto the stool before coming over to where I sat with a face like thunder.

"It made fun of me," was all the explanation I got as she flumped down across from me before immediately hiding her face in her arms.

I got rather odd looks of Lavender and Parvati at this, the latter of whom was stuck sat next to Laidalien.

"Lavender, Parvati, this is…" what to say? Laidalien's head had arisen from her arms when I spoke and I knew from the glare she was giving me that if I dared tell them her name I'd receive a swift kick like she'd promised me back before we'd been Sorted. "Lai." Okay so an eye roll was better than a bruised shin any day.

I probably would have gotten further than that if an angelic choir hadn't interrupted me.


	3. Chapter 3

Finally Arriving

Disclaimer: See chapter 1

The world changed. I'm not kidding; never mind the heavenly chorus that had suddenly struck up, the weather outside turned from a clear but bloody freezing night to a storm like I'd never seen before. The majority of the students seemed to freeze on the spot as well, it was very disturbing; I tried waving my hand in front of Laidalien's face but there wasn't any response. I would have tried waking her up some other way but it was about then that I noticed that about twenty different people had suddenly appeared in the Hall out of nowhere, all girls about my age too. There seemed something wrong with them, even from such a distance I could tell that; as could Lavender and Parvati, thankfully unfrozen, it seemed. They both stood up, wands at the ready, and looked at me.

"What's goin' on?" I wish I'd been told about stuff like this before coming here, I might have changed my mind and spent the rest of my school days in St Mungos; it might have been more peaceful.

"Sues. They're always at their worst now, don't know why. See Harry up there?" Lavender pointed somewhere further up the table, I looked but I couldn't pick him out of the crowd; might have been the skinny black-haired kid but I wouldn't place any money on it.

"Errm, yeah?" I'd no doubt find out who he was later.

"Well, most of them always seem to head straight for him. Some go over to the Slytherin table but we let them deal with those ones – we've got enough to cope with. As it is they freeze most people; it's almost as if they stop them from existing or getting in their way, and the few of us left have to deal with them."

Great, I've been in school an hour and I've been insulted, attacked and now I get to watch my friends attack girls with apparent superpowers. What could be more fun than that?

"Could use a hand if you don't mind, Jane, you dealt with that one on the train well enough." Parvati was smiling; she must have seen the expression of sheer dread on my face. "Don't worry, we wait till they've been sorted and sat down and then just stun them – it's easy enough."

I'm sure it is; which is why the remaining unfrozen students look so happy to be here. "Dow the other girls notice what you're d-doing?" That one on the train looked thick, but surely no one could be that dumb, could they?

"Nope."

Apparently they could. Fair enough, I wasn't about to complain about it.

"Okay then, so what do I do?" Preferably sit here and watch, but I doubted that would be happening any time soon.

"Well, first we need better seats, come on." Parvati helped me up, probably seeing my discomfort or possibly hearing my back and knees click their disapproval at being moved. She led me down the table to where Lavender had pointed before and sat down opposite three still students my age – two boys and a girl, one of the boys was actually the black haired kid I'd picked out earlier. "This is Harry, Hermione and Ron." She pointed to each of them in turn, and I waved, as much good that it did. "I'll introduce you to them better when they wake up."

Lavender took a seat next to me and immediately looked up at the staff table, a resigned look on her face. I followed her gaze and saw that Dumbledore had stood up. This in itself wouldn't have worried me; it was the slackened expression that unsettled me - I'd met him earlier in the summer and there was no way he looked like that normally.

"Students! If I could have your attention for a moment please?" His voice was strange too, holding an echo in it that wasn't anything to do with the grand acoustics of the hall. What was really creepy though was the way every head, of every frozen student and staff member, turned slowly to face the Headmaster. It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

I looked briefly at the girls that had appeared in the Hall earlier; they seemed unaffected by the strange behaviour of everyone present and in fact seemed rather oblivious to everything, even the other girls standing with them.

"I have the great pleasure to welcome to the school/This year Hogwarts participated in an exch/In order to foster good relations with the great land of/ferred into the sixth year/moved forwards a year because of/due to unforeseen circumstances we had to/ great tragedy and comes here from an area of great conflic/to learn our humble ways..." It went on for quite a while afterwards but I stopped listening after that. It was much like flicking through stations on the Wizarding Wireless Network, except Dumbledore was actually speaking like that – it had to be the Sues causing it.

As odd as it was, it did give me a chance to look around the Hall and spot a few more awake people. Three boys, one oddly familiar, waved at me from the top end of the table – I wondered briefly why they hadn't come down to join us, there was probably a reason though. Two of the female Professors looked on in boredom, not even taking notice of us students and four or five of the Slytherins remained awake. One of the lads gave us a thumbs up; I waved back, as you do and wondered about this supposed inter-house rivalry. Something to ask Lavender and Parvati about later.

Dumbledore did finish eventually though, mid-sentence, and McGonagall took over. For a minute I thought things had returned to normal as she opened up her list of names again and stood silently – who knows what she was waiting for. I noticed that Lavender had pulled out a piece of parchment and a quill, and was actually drawing up a quick table.

"What's that for?" I did toss about the possibility that she'd been possessed again like she had on the train but it didn't work really; then she'd been frozen like the others.

"We've got a bet on with the Slytherins, about who'll get the most this year. Need to keep a close tally as I've got a couple of Galleons riding on us." Ah, of course. I really should have guessed but the gambling's a bit more life and death in hospital. I saw that the Gryffindor column already had one tally stroke in it – Krystabella.

"How'd ya know she was a Gryffindor?" I did wonder as she wasn't wearing a uniform at the time.

"She asked after Harry, Slytherin Sues don't usually start asking after Harry until half term."

"Oh." I was extremely glad in that moment that my name wasn't Harry Potter.

Some silent, invisible cue must have made itself known to McGonagall as she suddenly started to call out names. Everyone still awake in the Hall became more alert at this and focused their attention, not on the Professor, but on the girls waiting silently in line.

"Mizaka Freemaiden!" Had the order she was calling them in suddenly changed? I could have sworn she did things by last name when I was being sorted, ah well.

This one was painful to look at, her hair was like... well it look like a waterfall made of gold had been attached to her head, which certainly put a strain on your eyes I can tell you. Speaking of eyes, when she turned towards us to sit on the stool, I caught a glimpse of hers. When I was a bab, I broke a blue glass vase of my mum's – the splinters on the floor looked exactly like what was in place of the girl's eyes. It made me feel sick to even think about them.

The Hat didn't seem to happy about being put on this Mizaka's head and even though it had insulted me earlier, I couldn't help but feel sorry for it. It was only on there for a second though before it screamed out 'Gryffindor'. The girl stood up and started to glide over to our table, I wondered how she did it actually, but then again I couldn't be sure whether she actually had feet under her long, bright red robes, I'd never seen any. As she came closer, I could actually hear the slight rumbling the foam at the bottom of her hair was making and the glassy tinkling her eyes made as she moved.

'Don't attack until you can see the whites of their eyes' I remembered hearing once; good advice as you'd be less likely to miss. Only problem was, this girl's eyes didn't have any whites.

She made her way over to us, not taking a blind bit of notice of me or the other two, and sat down next to the frozen Trio. That's where things got stranger.

Those three suddenly seemed to come to life, clapping and cheering like the students had when the first years had been Sorted. Only... their movements were all jerky, as if they were puppets at the hands of a rather inept master. It was creepy to watch.

The girl, Mizaka, smiled. "Hi there!" It sounded as if she'd swallowed a balloon or seven, her voice was that high. The girl out of the three in front of me, Hermione I think it was, waved and mouthed something silently – apparently it was some form of communication, or at least Mizaka took it to be so as she smiled wider in response. "Pleased to meet you 'Mione! I'm Mizaka Jerenali Pirfact Freemaiden, but you can call me Zaka!" She shouted everything, I feared that if we didn't get rid of her soon, I'd spend the rest of my life as deaf as a post.

Hermione then turned and pointed to the boys either side of her and mouthed what was probably an introduction. The stupid Sue then squeaked her name at each of them, rather redundantly and they waved and mouthed back. I was wondering when we'd be able to dispose of Mizaka; I could truly see now why Lavender and Parvati had spoke of the Sues in the way they did – this one in front of me was bloody annoying.

Seem she noticed us glaring at her though, although to be fair she did mistake it for something akin to awestruck wonder, and turned her attention to us. Or rather, the wand in Parvati's hand that was pointed directly at her forehead.

"What do you think you're doi-"

"Stupefy!"

The girl collapsed mid-sentence, sliding from her seat onto the floor. Parvati watched her with no small amount of satisfaction on her face, while Lavender just sighed. I looked to see what the reaction of the Trio opposite me would be, but they seemed to have reset and were facing the front of the Hall again, frozen as ever.

"One down, two dozen or so to go." Lavender said, putting a mark in the Gryffindor column.

It was going to be a long night...


End file.
